1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for providing a transient port. In particular, the present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for determining when a transient port is active and switching inputs from a permanent port to the transient port when the transient port is active.
2. Description of Related Art
In traditional rack mounted server systems, only a rear port is provided in the server system for access. This rear port is typically used to connect a terminal for configuring the server system and to provide error logging. Recently, rack mounted server systems have been developed for allowing small hand-held devices to be attached to the server system to perform these configuration and error logging functions. As with the traditional terminal based configuration, these hand-held devices also must be connected to a permanent rear connection port. This can be very cumbersome when only very temporary connections are necessary to perform the configuration and error logging processes.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to have an apparatus and method for providing a front connection port in a rack mounted server system. It would further be beneficial to have an apparatus and method for switching between a permanent connection port and a transient connection port.
The present invention provides an apparatus and method fpr providing a transient connection port. The present invention further provides an apparatus and method for switching between a permanent connection port and a transient connection port.
The apparatus and method of the present invention includes a permanent connection port and a transient connection port. In a preferred embodiment, the permanent connection port is located at the rear of a rack mounted server system and the transient connection port is located at the front of a rack mounted server system.
The permanent connection port operates when there is an absence of a connected device at the transient connection port. In other words, the transient connection port is only active when a device is connected to the transient connection port.
When a device is connected to the transient connection port, a signal is sent to a logic switch which causes the active input to be switched from the permanent connection port to the transient connection port. When the device is no longer connected to the transient connection port, the absence of the signal from the transient connection port causes the logic switch to switch the active input back to the permanent connection port.
By using the present invention, a convenient alternate mechanism to connect to a rack mounted server system is provided. In addition, the connection mechanism of the present invention provides a convenient method for connecting to a server system without requiring expensive additional hardware, software or firmware. Thus, the cost of the server system is minimized while the versatility is increased.